


A funny thing happened on the way to the graveyard

by impossibletruths



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Accidental First Date, F/M, accidental stealing, meet awkward, percy knows how to show a girl a good time, to a graveyard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 08:44:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7708507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy has always had a way with words, but caught stealing and wrong-footed he cannot for the life of him figure out how to tell this lovely woman that these flowers are not for some pretty young suitor but rather meant for his family. His <i>deceased</i> family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A funny thing happened on the way to the graveyard

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Sometimes I steal flowers from your garden on my way to the cemetery, but today you’ve caught me and have demanded to come with me to make sure the ‘girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft’ and I’m trying to figure out how to break it to you that we’re on our way to a graveyard.

On a warm spring day, when soft pastel petals drift down from the freshly budding trees and myriad bright flowers carpet the earth, Percy is stealing.

To be fair, he doesn’t realize he’s stealing, and it’s probably not a verdict that would hold up in a court of law, but it’s the principle of the thing. He crouches over a bed of flowers tucked between the sidewalk and the street, carefully picking a bright bouquet, crocuses and daisies and indian paintbrush and baby blue eyes, an assortment of vivid wildflowers. He is only just straightening up when a voice rings through the open window of the house behind him, sharp and clear and decidedly irritated.

“They better be fucking beautiful.”

Percy turns around so fast his glasses slip down his nose, and he pushes them back up with one finger to stare at the dark-haired woman scowling at him out of the front window of the upper floor of the duplex who he is, quite unintentionally he would assure you, stealing from.

“Pardon?”

“Whoever the fuck you’re planning on giving those flowers to.”

“I wasn’t––”

“Don’t think I haven’t seen you out there before. I do have eyes, darling.”

“I haven’t––” He hasn’t been out here before, he wants to say, but to be fair he has. Not often, certainly––he doesn’t make a habit of it––but now and again he has stopped to pick a bouquet before continuing on, and the wildflowers in front of this particular house are always so numerous and bright and––

Still. It’s the principle of the thing.

“It seems I owe you an apology,” he says to to the woman in the window. “I hadn’t realized they were anything but untended wildflowers.”

“Well, they’re _my_  untended wildflowers, which you are stealing.”

That’s stretching it a little, he wants to say, but he is a gentleman, so he doesn’t. Instead he straightens his jacket and says, “I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement?”

“Tell you what,” says the woman leaning out her window, and Percy can almost see the lightbulb going off as an idea comes to her. “How about you let me come along to see if they’re worth it.”

Percy doesn’t follow. “I’m sorry?”

“Oh, you know. To make sure whoever you’re planning on wooing is pretty enough to warrant flower theft.”

Oh. Oh, no, Percy isn’t–– “I’m not sure that’s a good––”

“Perfect. Trinket needs a walk anyways. Stay right there I’ll be down in a moment.”

Who––? He doesn’t even have time to open his mouth before the window slams shut, and Percy is left standing on the sidewalk feeling a bit as if she has just run roughshod over him.

And, he now has a problem: how is he supposed to tell this lovely woman––he doesn’t even know her name––that these flowers are not for some pretty young suitor?

He’s still trying to find the most polite way to word his explanation when she saunters out the front door, a dog in tow.

“Good heavens,” says Percy without thinking. “That dog is enormous.”

“This is Trinket,” says the woman, patting the giant––humongous, even––brown Newfoundland at her side. “You can pet him. He’s very sweet.”

“Right.” Percy eyes the teeth as he gingerly reaches out to pet the dog. The dog slobbers all over his hand.

“Vex’ahlia,” says the woman as he fishes a handkerchief out of his pocket and cleans off the dog slobber with quiet aplomb. He does have manners. “And you are?”

“Percival,” he says, tucking the handkerchief away. He considers shaking her hand, considers the dog slobber, and makes the sanitary decision.

“A pleasure. So where are we going, Percival?”

This is his cue to explain. He takes a deep breath and stifles the urge to fix his glasses. They are already on straight. “I’m very sorry to have stolen your flowers but I’m not going to meet anyone.”

Vex’ahlia arches one eyebrow. “Well now I’m even more curious.”

He should say no. He should say this is private. He should tell her, politely––his mother raised a gentleman, after all––to fuck off.

But she stares at him with one arched brow, eyes twinkling and smile a challenge, and Percy cannot find the words. He finds himself instead offering his arm to her. “On your own head so be it.”

“Oh, now that’s ominous,” she says with a laugh, and she slips her arm through his without the slightest hesitation. “Shall we, darling?”

It is… surprisingly nice, actually. The enormous dog sniffs at lamp posts and fire hydrants and comes along when Vex’ahlia calls. She chatters idly as they walk, asks if he’s from the neighborhood––he’s not––and if he knows the landmarks––only a few––and how often he comes through––once a month or so. She doesn’t ask where they’re going. Percy almost wishes she would.

As they get farther along, pass from the up-and-coming (which is Real Estate Agent for underserved-and-ramshackle) neighborhood into the nicer, neater, practically-a-gated-community neighborhood up the hill, Vex’ahlia’s chattering starts to slow.

“You don’t live here, do you?” she asks with something not entirely unlike awe.

“No.” Not for a long time now, though he knows these streets.

“Girlfriend’s house?” tries the woman.

“I haven’t got a girlfriend,” Percy says patiently.

“Boyfriend’s house?”

“Nor a boyfriend.” Vex’ahlia falls silent.

“Where are we going?” she asks, finally, as they crest the rise of the hill and stop before a wide expanse of green, neatly mowed grass stretching beyond the wrought-iron fence and gravel path snaking away through rows and rows of tombstones.

“I’m visiting my family,” says Percy, standing at the entrance to the cemetery, almost apologetic. Vex’ahlia yanks her arm away.

“You’re what.”

“I tried to tell you––”

“What kind of sick joke is this.”

“It’s not––”

“You could have fucking said something!” Her dog stares at him, ears back, and Percy holds up his hands. He’s still holding the bouquet of (stolen, yes, he knows) wildflowers.

“You’re right,” he says. “But… I rather appreciated the company.”

She falls silent, and Percy can almost see her weighing her options. Her eyes narrow.

“It’s a shitty thing to do.”

Percy blinks behind his glasses. “You insisted you were coming along.”

She sighs, and reaches out to pet her dog. His ears go back up, and he settles onto his haunches. “I suppose I did.”

For a moment they stand there, wrong footed and quietly apologetic, and then Percy clears his throat.

“I don’t suppose you would be willing to accompany me a little further? Or perhaps that’s rather morbid.” He can feel the flush creep across his face; damn his pale complexion.

“No, I–– If you want?”

“I’d like the company,” he tells her honestly. “It would make a nice change, to talk to someone besides the dead.”

She hesitates, and Percy thinks (knows, really) he has overstepped––a stroll through the neighborhood is one thing; asking a stranger to accompany you to pay respects to your deceased family is another entirely––but Vex’ahlia slips her arm back through his, a little more subdued.

“Then, certainly,” she says, wrapping her dog’s leash around her wrist with a determined sort of certainty. “And perhaps later––not now, of course, but maybe tomorrow––you can pay me back for the flowers you so rudely stole. Coffee, say?”

Percy has to smile at the audacity of the request. He finds it surprisingly endearing. “I think that could be arranged. Shall we?”

“After you, Percival.”

“Please, call me Percy.”

She smiles at him, less teasing and more warm. Percy’s stomach twists. “Vex.”

(As first dates go, they agree later, it’s not the strangest. Probably.)


End file.
